Former Panamanian Dictator Dies

Manuel Antonio Noriega, who was detained in a hospital since March for a brain tumor operation, died at the age of 83.

“The death of Manuel A. Noriega closes a chapter of our history, his daughters and their families deserve a funeral in peace,” tweeted Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela.

The exgeneral left temporarily on January 28 of the prison Renacer, on the banks of the Panama Canal, where he served sentences for disappearances and murders, to operate.

According to the AFP agency, his personal doctor, Eduardo Reyes, said that the tumor “had an unexpected growth”, which accelerated the need for surgery to avoid damage to the brain system despite high risk.

His family members repeatedly asked to be granted house arrest for having suffered several strokes, lung complications, prostate cancer and depression, but all requests were rejected.

General Manuel Noriega died Monday night at 83 years old. (AP)

Defeated after a bloody US military invasion in 1989, Noriega was imprisoned since then for drug trafficking and money laundering in the United States and France, which extradited him to Panama in 2011.

In his country he served three sentences for the disappearance and murder in 1985 of the opponent Hugo Spadafora; Of the military Moses Giroldi, who died after rebelling against him in 1989; And by the so-called Albrook massacre, in which several soldiers died after revolting in his last year.

He also had other pending cases for disappearances when he was head of the defunct National Guard and right-wing nationalist leader Omar Torrijos, who came to power after a military coup in 1968.

Noriega called for “forgiveness” in 2015 to “any person who feels offended, affected, harmed or humiliated by my actions,” he said.